HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

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DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe)
mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Monday, May 04, 2009

In the Twee Suburbs




I AM ALL MOVED IN. Apart from bucket, mop and sundry papers strewn all over the last place's floor, all has come with me. I have yet to spot a single cockroach in my new house.

My Mum and Brian turned up yesterday morning to what resembled a bomb explosion in an Oxfam shop. Stuff was everywhere, and where I'd tried to pile it up it looked worse than ever. How on earth this would fit in the new house I dared not imagine. Where on earth it had come from I could not compute. The kitchen cupboards were bare. About five boxes full of stuff just from those. Bathroom emptied out. A whole pharmacy of drug paraphernalia chucked in the front bin.

It took us three carloads to do it, Ikea tables, clothes racks and all. My patience was wearing thin at the end as I was over-tired. I had been feeling semi-ill all weekend. On Friday night I honestly felt it would never get done, as I lay in bed, nauseated, hoping not to vomit (which I did not) and staring out forlornly at my conglomerated stuff.

The new place is luxuriously cold, with no double glazing. Radiators firmly off and a natural climate rather than the double-glazing-intensified sweaty midsummer furnace two of my last three places have turned out to be ...

I fell into deepest slumber at eleven o'clock on my new unmade bed. My Mum says it's a kingsize mattress. She had to rush out to buy new undersheets from BHS because the old ones were far too tiny. I've not fitted the replacements. I've done nothing except survey how clean, tidy and neat my new place looks.

Trotters are pride of place on a low table next to the television. Every now and then a pink nose appears from a tube end, followed by a furry face. Then if you're lucky you might get Spherical scurrying scurrulously from tube to gnawed-out Atora-box outhouse. The neighbours probably already think I'm mad for cooing in a silly voice: "Hello little Trotter! Hello! Have you got perky little ones!?" I'm talking about her ears. Only afterwards did I realize this might be open to interpretation.

Talking about perky little ones, I went for a midnight walk and apart from the local off-licence-cum-vegetable shops (bottle shops) the only place left open appeared to be a 24-hour knocking shop. It was called a "sports club and sauna" but looked decidedly seedy to me...

So welcome to Avenue Life... I'm now at the furthest extreme of my old stomping ground, not quite on alien territory. My old friend Valium Marilyn, who looks like Marilyn Monroe with a 30-year gear habit lives just a couple of streets away and two of my old dealers used to do business round here: one from the road off the one end of my street, one from an alleyway at the other! So it's old ground really. Those dealers have long gone. One, who I liked, got flushed down the toilet thanks to his own habit on crack. The other is doing massively long prison time by all accounts after police caught him well and truly, digging up a massive money and drugs stash in his Mum's back garden.

As for me I'm reading John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey with the radio on (as the TV aerial appears defunct), procrastinating unpacking and considering starting up a mini herb garden in my bedroom bay window, that could double as a pretentious bougeois reading seat ...

It's Mayday bank holiday (that is, a public holiday). So life's as busy as ever. The sun is shining, cars are out. I'd better ping off before this internet caff terminates me. Have a nice day, y'all ..!

PS I'm not one for TV theme tunes of the 1980s obsessions, but I did wake up with this, the music from Juliet Bravo going around and around in my head. As TV themes go I think it's quite OK (do you?) It reminds me of having Findus piri piri beef crispy pancakes with Birdseye potato waffles and Heinz baked beans for tea "of" an evening after coming home from school ...

PS Juliet Bravo ran on the BBC till 1985. How old does that make me feel..??!?




In the news: British woman Samantha Orobator faces firing squad for allegedly trying to smuggle heroin out of Laos. The South Londoner, who was allegedly hoping to study medicine, was caught with a 680g package of heroin "in her suitcase" at Wattay airport in the Lao capital.

Most mysteriously of all, however, she is now 5 months pregnant, having been in an all-women's prison for NINE months..!

PPS I am a big fan of the actress Rachel Griffiths

12 comments:

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Your new place sounds nice, Gleddy. I am happy for you.

Best settling in,

SB

Dad and Mom said...

Mayday??? Seems like everyone outside of the US has so many holidays that we don't observe here. I WANT MORE HOLIDAYS!!!

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Oooooh, a new clean home. Sounds great, enjoy it!

Gledwood said...

SB: it's v nice (& a bit twee..(!)

M&D: aye and they're thinking of adding one MORE ~ a St George's Day national holiday for England. I used to hate these days when I was younger ~ they meant I got a compulsory day off work without pay. Yukk

EileenReeny: cheers!

Akelamalu said...

I hope you're happy in your new place, once you've put everything in it's place. :)

sally in norfolk said...

welcome to your new home..hope you will be very happy there :-)

Baino said...

Gleds master the fine art of 'folding' saves piles of stuff accumulating on the floor. Looks great, and frankly I'm rather glad it's further from your dealers than the other place. New start perhaps? If you like Rachel Griffiths, try to get the DVD's of Six Feet Under, it's class!

Lesley said...

It's exhausting all this moving milarkey but it'll all come right in the end. :) I hope you'll be happy there.

M- Filer said...

I think this is the third flat that I have followed you too. Seems like you liked the location of the last more than the one prior, and this one...not as much? Or more? Can't tell, but it seems you do like it. I assume it is the equivalent of an SRO (single room occupancy) by US standards.

Kahshe Cottager said...

This sounds like a very nice apartment Gleds. I hope you are happy living there. I am not visiting in Blogland very often now, but I will continue to pop over when I can.

Syd said...

Congrats on the new digs. It sounds like a good place and am glad that the trotters are happy.

Vincent said...

Gratz on the new place mate. I hope you'll enjoy it. Will you be able to use the heaters though?

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

Manic Magic

Manic Magic

Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

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